Monday, July 5, 2021

144 MHz WSPR beacon in Hawaii heard by several stations in California (~4000kms)

Back in April of 2021, I had a post up about how Chris, N3IZN in the south of California was hearing the KH6HME WSPR beacon on Hawaii on 144 MHz. At that time, he seemed to be the only person listening for it.

It's good to see that 144 MHz WSPR activity is now on the increase in California and between the 28th of June and the 4th of July 2021, a total of eight stations heard the beacon in Hawaii.


This is the list of stations...

UTC (y-m-d)         TX                 txGrid RX         rxGrid MHz W SNR
2021-06-28 00:04 KH6HME/B BK29go KK6TG CM88qk 144.276997 20 -28
2021-06-28 02:12 KH6HME/B BK29go N3IZN/2 DM13ji 144.277008 20 -19
2021-06-28 15:22 KH6HME/B BK29go N6WS CM95 144.277033 20 -21
2021-06-28 16:54 KH6HME/B BK29go W6IT DM13bp 144.276998 20 -29
2021-06-28 17:10 KH6HME/B BK29go N6CA DM03ut 144.277005 20 -21
2021-06-30 20:00 KH6HME/B BK29go K7KX CM95nj 144.277045 20 -32
2021-07-01 04:20 KH6HME/B BK29go N3IZN DM13ji 144.276999 20 -28
2021-07-01 21:16 KH6HME/B BK29go K6TW DM03 144.277 20 -32

There were a total of 1590 reception reports during that period for the beacon which is pretty amazing considering the distance is in the region of 4000kms.

The strongest signal was +4db which was probably strong enough for a SSB QSO. The weakest signal -34dB which is about 20dB below what can be heard with the human ear.

This was the tropo forecast at 21:00 UTC on the 1st of July which seemed to be a good time for conditions...


There seems to be a 500km or so gap around Hawaii but there seems to have been a good tropo duct predicted for the eastern part of the path to California.

It's likely that the vast majority of the 1590 reception reports were via a tropo duct close to the ocean but considering it's the Summer time, a percentage could have been via Sporadic-E with a tropo extension.

These are the stations in California that heard the KH6HME beacon over a 700km or so front...


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